News and Stories

We love our nurses! Global Health Reach (GHR) understands that nurses often provide front-line care in clinical settings in the United States. This isn’t different in the field! They fill a variety of crucial roles during GHR medical mission trip clinics. This post outlines just a few of the many possibilities. Returning to the same area gives the unique opportunity to witness the health of an entire community improve over the course of years. We get to bring the primary care office to a community and the patients will develop a deeper trust with volunteers and providers that consistently show… Read More

Imagine feeling like a foreigner in your own country. That is the experience many rural Guatemalans have when they engage the local healthcare system. Language represents one of greatest barriers to healthcare in this diverse and vibrant country and can leave both parties, patient and provider, feeling like outsiders. Nearly half of Guatemalans speak Kaqchikel, an indigenous Mesoamerican language. Although Kaqchikel is taught in schools throughout Guatemala there are many dialects complicating communication between villages and regions. Since nearly all of healthcare is delivered in Spanish, the indigenous people struggle to engage healthcare providers, understand diagnoses and maintain continuity of… Read More

Greetings from Vietnam! The team has arrived in Ha Giang and is settled in. Today, we visited the village of Linh Ho with the expectation of treating only 100 patients; however, we were greatly surprised by the number of people who arrived seeking medical attention for a number of chronic and acute health problems. Our team was able to treat 178 patients today in various capacities! The population of the Linh Ho village is made up of mostly farmers and field workers. Our team witnessed many complaints of osteoarthritis, dehydration, back pain, poor dental hygiene, and chronic constipation. We were… Read More

We have now returned to our homes, the statistics are tallied and the finances settled. As I go through all the pictures and information, I am overwhelmed. So much was done in so little time. Just over 450 patients were seen, and by “seen”, I mean each one was assessed and each one received a physical. For many, this was their first doctor’s visit, and now their whole family has a medical record started! Other missions may boast of extraordinary numbers, but can they say that each patient was truly “seen”? Can they assure you that the hypertension and diabetes… Read More

After completing our first trip, we set to work on organizing the receipts so we can report how your donations are being used. This was our founding trip for Guatemala, and all donations received for this trip went straight to the field. The pie chart below shows how the funds were divided and used. In fact we had to use $588 from our general donation account to cover some of the expenses. Here are the detailed numbers that correspond to the pie chart above: Category Amount Percentage Lodging $3,413 29% Transportation $2,546 22% Clinic Supplies $2,388 20% Food $1,329 11%… Read More

Today was our last day of clinic, and I can’t believe all that was done in such a short amount of time. We visited the smallest of our partner villages today. There are only about 25 families here, and yet we saw over 100 patients. Men, women and children arrive as families, and they often want to be seen at one time. The nurses and providers assess each patient and spend a lot of time talking and educating the people, so that they can better understand what is healthy and what isn’t. Medicine is not just prescribing the right medication…. Read More